1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording apparatus capable of recording CATV (Cable Television) signals.
2. Description of Related Art
In the United States of America, CATV broadcasts are already popular, and CATV broadcasts are recorded using magnetic recording apparatus such as a Video Cassette Recorder (hereinafter referred to as VCR). Some of CATV broadcasts are pay TV broadcasts, and signals of these pay TV are scrambled. To receive and record such signals on a TV receiver, it is required to connect a VCR to a cable box which is a CATV tuner equipped with a scramble decoder to decode the scramble of the signals.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a conventional VCR and a cable box to record a CATV broadcast. In the figure, 52 denotes a cable box. A cable from a distributor for CATV not shown in the figure is connected to the cable box 52, and RF signals of CATV are inputted to the cable box 52. The cable box 52 is a CATV tuner equipped with a scramble decoder to select a CATV broadcast channel and decode the scramble of signals.
With an operation by a user of a channel selecting operation unit installed on the cable box 52 or with application by the user of remote-control signals to the channel selecting operation unit, a desired channel is selected out of the input CATV signal channels. As to scrambled signals, the scramble is decoded, and signals of a selected channel are outputted in 3 channels or 4 channels of RF. RF signals from the cable box 52 are inputted to the tuner 53 installed in the VCR 51 via input terminal 58.
In the tuner 53, control signals to receive the channel of the signals outputted from the cable box 52, namely 3 channels or 4 channels, are inputted from the channel selection circuit 57. The signals received by the tuner 53 are inputted to the signal processing circuit 54 as IF signals, where video signals and audio signals are separated and output.
These signals are designed to be inputted to the converter 55, converted to RF signals of the 3 channels or 4 channels of RF, outputted to a TV receiver and given to the recording head 66 so that these signals are recorded on a tape.
As described above, the conventional VCR selects a CATV broadcast channel by the cable box 52. Therefore, when a user wants a broadcast of a different channel while seeing and recording a CATV broadcast of a certain channel, the user operates the channel selecting operation unit installed on the cable box 52 or gives remote-control signals to the cable box 52 using a remote-control signal transmitter. At that time, the user has to turn ON the VCR operation unit power switch and operate the channel selecting operation unit or the remote-control signal transmitter. The operation of two devices is troublesome.